Look, I’m a little sensitive about my snubby, okay?
Whoa! What’re the odds? That’s Enas Yorl and his brand new Smith & Wesson 686 onscreen in the background there, me and mine in the foreground…turns out Mr Minority has one and McGoo has one, too.
This is my bedside cannon. My “holy shit, lady, you aren’t kidding!” piece. It is very big and shiny. It makes an extremely loud bang. I suspect it would make exceedingly large holes in bad guys, but happily I’ve never had to test this theory.
When I moved to Rhode Island, I arrived unarmed and stayed that way for twenty years. I knew the rules were more restrictive up here in Yanquiland and I figured buying a gun wasn’t worth the trouble.
But then I bought a house on a corner lot. Sound travels funny here. Somebody slams a car door, it sounds like bad guys moving around in the basement. One night, I found myself creeping down the stairs clutching a tack hammer like Conan the Ovarian, and I thought, “this is too stupid.”
Turns out, while it’s nearly impossible to get a concealed carry permit in Rhode Island, all you need is a “blue card” to buy a gun and keep it in your home. To earn your blue card, you need to pass a background check and a written exam.
I am now going to tell you how to pass the written exam. Ready? Here’s the secret: there is no condition under which any gun can ever be considered unloaded. None whatever. Just fired six rounds out of a six shooter? Still loaded. Just completely disassembled your pistol into its umpty-ump constituent parts? Still loaded. Crushed it flat with a backhoe? Loaded. Aliens blew our lovely blue earth to smithereens and just as your lungs collapse in the cold nothingness of outer space a molten glob of metal that might possibly once have been your favorite revolver sails past your ear into the void? Count on it, it’s loaded.
Yup. See, they took the old common-sense recommendation that it’s safest to regard every gun as loaded and morphed it into a nonsensical declaration that every gun really is loaded all the time. Put your hand on your heart and say something stupid, and we’ll give you that blue card.
I wonder how many rosy-necked sons of the soil were too proud to say something that dumb to earn their papers?
November 29, 2007 — 5:45 pm
Comments: 69
Russian? Anyone?
This was on the back door of an otherwise plain white work van I saw on the commute home tonight. Anyone?
Yeah, I know. Lame post, but I’ve goofed off all day and I hesitate to break a perfect record. It was a cinch the stapler post would dominate the blog all week, anyhow.
Uncle Badger says I deserve you guys. Sometimes, it almost sounds like it’s not a compliment.
October 5, 2007 — 5:04 pm
Comments: 43
Forget your troubles, c’mon get Happy
Hi! I’m Happy! Happy Bidet!
Did you know bidet is French for ‘pony’? The picture I just put in your head? You’re welcome!
I was born so that Stoaty would never again have to observe a minion’s natal day with a post about a one hundred year old unsolved cutthroat murder!
Yeah, see, this is what happens when I don’t have a deadline and I’m sitting in front of a cup of coffee and a nice, fresh copy of Photoshop. Yeehaw!
September 26, 2007 — 9:10 am
Comments: 20
A special weekend happy birthday to Dawn and the Camden Town Murder
So Dawn mentions it’s her birthday. So I think about what sort of graphic goes with “Dawn” and, naturally, the first thing that pops into my head is this little guy, above.
It was drawn by Robert Wood, a young commercial artist, in 1907. It’s a postcard mailed from Belgium inviting a woman named Phyllis Dimmock to a pub called the Rising Sun in the North London neighborhood of Camden Town. Phyllis was described at trial as a prostitute, but she may simply have been extraordinarily liberal with her favors. Also, she collected postcards. Isn’t that nice?
It is signed “Yours to a cinder, Alice.”
On the morning of September 12, Phyllis was found by her common-law husband lying in bed with her throat cut from ear to ear. There was blood in the basin and a straight razor beside it. Her postcard collection was strewn about the room, as if the murderer had tried unsuccessfully to find something. Or really hated postcards.
Later, this card turned up in the back of a drawer. When it was reproduced in the papers, an old girlfriend identified Robert Woods as the author. He talked her out of going to the police and asked her to give him an alibi. She couldn’t resist running her mouth about it, though, and word got out. He eventually admitted being the last person seen with Phyllis on the night of the 11th.
Long story short: tried and acquitted.
His case was argued by Edward Marshall Hall, who went on to be become one of the most famous British barristers, evah. Wood was the first criminal defendant in Britain to give evidence at his own trial and still be acquitted (despite the fact that he didn’t make a very good impression). The case became known as the Camden Town Murder.
The execrable painter Walter Sickert lived in Camden Town at the time and painted several enigmatic, crap pictures of the Camden Town Murder. Several writers — most recently and famously Patricia Cornwell — think Sickert was Jack the Ripper. Which is tosh, rubbish and bullshit.
That makes Wednesday before last the hundredth anniversary of the Camden Town Murder. Happy birthday, Dawn!
September 22, 2007 — 2:39 pm
Comments: 14
Grim milestone
For some reason, the old WordPress sites gets a ton more comment spam. Maybe the spamming software just walks down the list of “wordpress” domains, trying all the doors. This is especially useless as the founder of WordPress is also the guy who wrote Akismet, which has proved to be an extraordinarily accurate spam filter. Except, it hates Lokki. That’s just the way it is.
Very pleased at the comment-to-post ratio, incidentally. Thank you. Entrapping good commenters is the hardest part. Many otherwise excellent blogs never manage it.
I put it down to 1957 Plymouth Belvedere, booger haiku and the
sweet, sweet smell of weasel.
August 22, 2007 — 2:02 pm
Comments: 33
The Steamboat McGoo thread
The once was a steam-boatin’ man
Who sported a show-boatin’ tan.
The ladies said, “my!
He’s as brown and as spry
As that dream-boatin’ Ed McMahon!”
Steamboat McGoo is in the hospital being fitted with a shiny knew titanium knob. Here’s a helpful rhyming dictionary. Do it. Do it for McGoo.
July 12, 2007 — 6:32 pm
Comments: 27